


Blinded by the Glare (Was Moving Like I Didn't Care)

by lovetincture



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - The Reichenbach Fall, Dubious Science, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, First Time, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, John is a Bit Not Good, M/M, Mary Morstan & John Watson friendship, POV John Watson, Post-Reichenbach, Reichenbach Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 07:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16403570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is dead.John keeps repeating it in the hopes that sooner or later, his mind will begin to recognize it as truth.The milk has gone off, and Sherlock Holmes is dead.I’m late to the clinic, and Sherlock Holmes is dead.I feel like I’m going insane, and Sherlock Holmes is dead.Nothing makes it feel any more real, but John repeats it anyway. His therapist thinks it will help. Because that’s what John does, these days. He goes to therapy, for all the good it does him (none at all, thank you very much). He buys milk. He goes to work. He’s polite to strangers even when he feels like screaming.* * *John watched Sherlock jump from the roof of Bart's hospital, and he can't believe the detective is dead. John concocts a series of increasingly dangerous "experiments" in order to prove that Sherlock is alive.





	Blinded by the Glare (Was Moving Like I Didn't Care)

_Sherlock Holmes is dead._

John keeps repeating it in the hopes that sooner or later, his mind will begin to recognize it as truth.

_The milk has gone off, and Sherlock Holmes is dead._

_I’m late to the clinic, and Sherlock Holmes is dead._

_I feel like I’m going insane, and Sherlock Holmes is dead._

Nothing makes it feel any more real, but John repeats it anyway. His therapist thinks it will help. Because that’s what John does, these days. He goes to therapy, for all the good it does him (none at all, thank you very much). He buys milk. He goes to work. He’s polite to strangers even when he feels like screaming.

He does not move out of 221B Baker Street.

He does not do anything crazy.

He cannot believe that Sherlock is actually dead.

He does visit the grave—and that’s how he thinks of it— _the_ grave, not _Sherlock’s_ grave. It’s a small distinction, but it’s one of the ones John is determined to hold onto. His own private rebellion against reality.

He goes to the grave, and he talks. Talks as though Sherlock can hear him, and maybe he can. He was such a mad bastard, maybe he found a way to cheat death. Maybe he deduced the Reaper until the Reaper got sick of his ill-tempered new charge and spat him back out upon terra firma. John used to think that Sherlock would outlive God.

He likes to pretend that Sherlock is listening. That he’s hiding behind a tree, rolling his eyes as John talks about his week. So John tells Sherlock about the insufferable old woman at the clinic who keeps coming back, convinced she has cancer no matter how many times John tells her it’s only a headache _really_ and perhaps she should lay off the late night WebMD sessions. He talks about the date he went on—no, not the tall one, the one with the dog—that ended poorly but at least they made it to dessert this time. Turns out women don’t like to hear their date talk about his dead flatmate over drinks.

John has got it down to a science at this point, and he thinks Sherlock would like that. He can talk about Sherlock for twenty minutes before they start fidgeting in their seats and surreptitiously checking the time—thirty-three minutes, if there’s alcohol.

He knows he should stop, knows he should be more polite and ask about their day. Nod politely and not talk about his latest theory. He definitely should not talk about the way he knows, somehow just _knows_ that Sherlock isn’t dead because if he was dead, surely John would know, yes? Surely John would feel it in his bones the way amputees sometimes feel twinges of pain in their phantom limbs.

And yet he doesn’t. Stop, that is. He goes on dates that are doomed, utterly doomed, from the start, and he tells them about his dead flatmate like a nutter because John is being _good_. He is being sane and normal and fully functional. It’s all fine, thanks, so the world can bloody well allow him this one small indulgence.

John is Good and Sane and Fine until one day he admits to himself that he isn’t. He is none of those things. He is _bored_. Really, truly bored and Not Fine, and if he has to sit through one more day of Fine patients telling him about their nothing-ailments—if he has to sit through one more night of crap telly, John is going to lose it.

And so he sits, and he thinks, and he schemes. Because Sherlock Holmes was a bloody genius, and John Watson certainly is not, but he’s no slouch either. He makes a hypothesis.

People comment that he’s doing better. “You look well,” Sarah says. “Glad to see you’re moving on,” as though moving on is what means _better_ . As if it was even possible. No, the truth is that John has a purpose now. He has something to do besides sit at home and think about all the ways his life will never be interesting, really _interesting_ , ever again.

Hypothesis: Sherlock Holmes is not dead.

Now John just had to prove it.

* * *

From then on, John Watson courted danger like it was his job.

He tried hitting up Lestrade first. Lestrade, who he hadn’t really spoken to since… well. Since. Greg was sympathetic but firm.

“John,” he sighed, scratching the back of his head for something to do with his hands. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helpless surrender. “The top brass, they’re on my arse ever since… you know. It’s not that we don’t value you, John. It’s just—”

“It’s fine.” John said, already trying to beat a hasty retreat.

“No, John. I’m bollocksing this all up. You’re great, okay? You’re great at. At what you do, it’s just that Sherlock—”

“Right, fine. I got it. I’m not him, just the idiot sidekick. Got it.”

John was being unfair, he knew. Sherlock had been one of a kind. It’s not that John thought he could take his place. It wasn’t as though he thought he had _anything_ to offer the Met. Not really. He just hadn’t expected being dismissed outright would hurt so much. It only confirmed what he already knew to be true. Without Sherlock, he had nothing. There was no real place where he belonged anymore.

“Problem?” A female voice asked Lestrade. Sally Donovan, of course. Because John’s day couldn’t possibly be complete until every single possible thing that could go wrong, had.

“No,” John answered before Lestrade could open his mouth. He saw something in the older man’s eyes— regret, apology maybe— but he didn’t want to stick around for whatever came next. John stuffed his hands into his oversized olive drab coat and shuffled his way back out the way he’d came.

“Maybe we can get a pint sometime, yeah? John?” Lestrade called after him.

John held up a hand in acknowledgement and didn’t look back. He didn’t need Lestrade’s pity.

“He really went off the deep-end after the freak died, didn’t he?” Donovan said, sounding bored.

“Can it,” Lestrade said.

* * *

Right-o. Police work was not on. Apparently you can’t be one half of a consulting investigation duo without the world’s only consulting detective.

That was alright, then. John could improvise. He had been in the military, after all.

And that’s how he found himself outside, on the wrong side of midnight, in this flea-bitten alley buying himself a police scanner from a man who called himself _Mad Dog_. If the Met wouldn’t help him find crimes, he would just find them himself.

Mad Dog himself didn’t much live up to his name. If John had been expecting a large, imposing criminal type, he’d have surely been disappointed. The man standing in front of him was thin, scraggly, and twitching, seemingly coming down off any number of illicit substances. He looked pitiful and dirty more than menacing.

“So you’re sure I’ll be able to hear the police radio transmissions?” John asked.

“Yeah, yeah.” Mag Dog waved a hand flippantly, and the motion didn’t quite conceal the shaking. He scratched at his face unpleasantly.

John was skeptical.

“It’s been cracked,” the tweaker said impatiently. He was scanning the alley now. Clearly, he was anxious for John to be on his way. “You know, _cracked_.” He showed John the scanner, whose dial was set to a certain frequency marked by a red line in permanent marker. “It’ll pick up the coppers’ frequency, though I don’t know why you want to. You some kind of Batman or something? Eheheheh.” He laughed at his own joke until he realized John wasn’t laughing along. Then he looked hard at John. Frowned. “No, don’t tell me.”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“I said _don’t_. I don’t know nothing about you, you don’t know nothing about me. Keep it that way, yeah? 300 quid and then off you get.”

John pulled out the money and gave it to him. It was a lot, especially for a retired army doctor still only working part-time, and now without a flatmate to split the rent.

_For the experiment_ , John told himself, and the thought was gratifying. He felt positively jaunty as he headed home, infused with that intoxicating sense of _purpose_ he had tasted earlier. His wallet was several hundred quid lighter, but his pocket was heavy with the contraband electronic he’d acquired, and that felt alright.

That was perhaps why he didn’t hear the muggers before he saw them. Three of them, teenagers all. They looked young and hungry, thirsty for blood and adventure. Looking for a fix. They reminded him of nothing so much as himself.

It was a split-second decision to decide not to reach for his gun. It was there, tucked snug against the small of his back as it ever was. In that moment, John couldn’t have said why he stood there, dumb as any civilian. He couldn’t have said why he let the slow, uneasy smile spread over his face, the smile that said _prey_.

His plan was to get Sherlock’s attention, after all. There was no time like the present.

“Good evening, boys. I’m not looking for any trouble.” _Lies_ , the shade of Sherlock Holmes that lived in his brain would have said.

“We are,” sneered one of the boys. The one in the front, he must be the leader.

“Give us your wallet,” said another one.

“Make me,” John said.

The thugs exchanged a bunch of slick, ill-intentioned smiles among them. “Wrong answer.”

_It’s your lucky day, boys._

The first punch knocked the wind from John. He swung at the one who had hit him, a tall youth in a skullcap with an ugly, pockmarked face. John was a trained fighter. He knew better than to let any of them get behind him, into his blindspot. He didn’t follow his own advice. One of them got behind him, and while he was trading blows with the two in front, trying to block his face and get his own hits in, someone kicked his legs out from under him.

John hit the wet pavement with a _thwack_. The muggers started kicking at him while he was down. He ought to protect his face, he knew he ought. But all he could think of was the radio, so he curled up around it. Let them think he was trying to protect his stomach. All he cared about was his prize making it back in one piece.

A searing pain filled his head, and everything went white and silent as a boot connected with his skull. He didn’t intend to start laughing. It wasn’t some kind of grand, Holmesian trick. It seemed to bubble up in him as if from a hidden, mad wellspring. He could taste the copper tang of blood in his mouth, could feel it trickling down his face. Oh, but it was so unbearably _funny_ in this moment.

The kicks stopped.

“Rog?” The voice sounded far away and uncertain.

“Shut up, don’t call me that,” the other one hissed.

“I don’t like that laugh, man. Let’s just take the wallet and go.”

“Shut _up_ , let me think.”

“He’s probably a looney, not much sport in that.”

While they were busy arguing amongst themselves, John pulled himself together enough to grab the gun from his waistband. He pulled himself upright, insomuch as it could be called upright. He was mostly sagging against the filthy brick wall.

He chuckled a bit, still. It was all just so damned funny. Oh, if Sherlock could see him now.

One of them finally looked in his direction, and the kid’s eyes grew comically wide. “Oh _shit_ , he’s got a gun.” He slapped his compatriot on the shoulder. “He’s got a gun!”

John halfheartedly brandished the gun. Waved it at them, really. His would-be muggers fled in a series of curses, their trainers slapping wetly against the ground as they disappeared into the deserted streets.

John sighed and took stock of himself. His left eye was rapidly swelling shut, and he thought he might have a broken rib. Possible concussion, based on the floating haze in his head. He pulled himself up and winced. Definitely a broken rib, then.

He stowed his gun and limped his way out of the alley. The alley smelled like piss and sulfur, and he imagined he must too. His jacket was torn, and he was covered in mud and gore. He badly needed a shower and a first aid kit.

As he passed the entrance to the alley and hit the main road, John saw a CCTV camera pointing in his direction. He turned a bloodied smile towards it and gave it a little salute.

A successful night indeed.

*** * ***

John started keeping a journal after that. He started writing down all the methods he’d tried, because that’s how you did science, wasn’t it?

So far he had tried:

_Getting mugged in an alley: fail_

_Insinuating myself into a domestic: fail_

_Interrupting an armed robbery: fail_

_Confronting a murder suspect: fail_

_Interrupting an actual attempted murder: fail_

It was at this point that Lestrade started getting suspicious. He had pulled John aside at that last crime scene, and he had looked furious and genuinely scared when he had told him, “I swear to God, John. If I catch you at another crime scene for the next twenty years, I will throw you in gaol.”

“I thought you were my friend,” John had tried. Bit stupid, that, but he had been desperate not to lose his source of scenarios for the experiment.

Lestrade had looked pained. “I _am_ your friend. That’s why I will lock you up if I catch you sniffing round here again. You need help. Look, I…” his voice went low. “I miss him too, okay?”

John jerked back as if burned. Lestrade told him again they should meet up for drinks, but John demurred. He had the work now, and it was important that he kept on with his experiments.

While being thrown in gaol could have made for an interesting experiment— _would Sherlock bail me out if I got myself locked up in jail?_ —it would also be the _last_ experiment, so John wasn’t keen on trying it now.

That meant he had to get inventive with his approach, now that the crime scenes were out.

The next entries in the journal were the results of his creative thinking:

_Walking into traffic: fail_

_Unsafe sex with strangers: fail_

_Drinking myself blind and staggering around the city: fail_

John even tried the less obvious methods. He met a pretty blonde woman with a nice smile at work, and he asked her out on a date. It was the first date he’d been on since he started this experiment months ago.

John got ready in his bathroom beforehand, staring at himself in the mirror. Looking back at him was a man he barely recognized. The man in the mirror had a gaunt, hungry look about him. His eyes were too bright, too keen. There were deep shadows beneath them. John did up his shirt to the last button, covering up the bruises that were still too fresh.

They met at the pub. Mary—and that was definitely her name. John had written it down so he wouldn’t forget—was already there when he arrived. She was nursing a pint of beer that she’d barely touched. She smiled when she saw him.

“John.” The smile reached her eyes and made them crinkle.

John pressed a glancing kiss to the side of her cheek. “Hello, Mary. Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”

“Ah, well. You know how it is. It gets dreadfully dull doing nothing but work, doesn’t it? All work and no play, you know what they say.”

John hadn’t been paying attention. He’d been watching her mouth, the way it curled up so easily into a smile. Is that how normal people were? He’d all but forgotten. “Hm? Yeah, yes it does.”

Was that the right reply? Must have been, because she’s smiling again.

They made small talk as they finished their beers. They had another and ordered fish and chips. Mary claimed this pub had the best fish and chips in all of London, and John allowed himself to be swayed, to be pulled along by her frank enthusiasm. She had a way about her that put him at ease, so that when she told a story about one of their clients who hadn’t understood that he couldn’t bring his dog into the office, John was snorting into his third beer with entirely unfeigned laughter.

The mirth shook something loose in him, and for a little while, he felt clean and bright. The pleasant buzz of alcohol in his head certainly didn’t hurt either. That’s why, when Mary reached out to clasp his arm in her hand, he didn’t realize it until it was too late. Her fingers closed around one of his fresh bruises, and he flinched.

Something in her eyes grew hard and sharp as she drew back. She made eye contact with him as she used deft fingers to undo the buttons at his shirt cuff. It looked like a dare— as though she was daring him to stop her. John pushed his shoulders back. Far be it from him to ever back down from a dare.

She pushed back his shirt sleeve with gentle firmness and gasped. Her gasp was a tiny, little thing: just a suck of indrawn air through pursed lips. “John.”

She turned his arm over, traced her fingers over the patchwork of mottled bruises there. Some were fresh and blooming purple. Others had faded into dull greys and sick yellows. He hissed when she brushed the half-healed gash along the back of his forearm, the one he’d stitched up himself, the one he’d gotten from falling headlong into a skip while drunk off his arse. His mind was being singularly unhelpful. The one thought his drink-addled brain supplied was, _Her fingers aren’t as long as his._

“What is this? Are you— is someone hurting you?”

“What? No!” He yanked his sleeve back down, feeling his face flush with embarrassment.

“So you’re hurting yourself, then?”

“No. Yes. No, it’s not like that.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” Mary said, and there was a thread of steel there, beneath all her kindness.

“Any chance you’ll just let this go?”

“Nope.”

John sighed. “Fine. You know my flatmate… disappeared six months ago.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Mary supplied. “I know the one. Saw it in the papers.” She very carefully does not comment on his use of the word _disappear_ instead of the word _die_ , and John feels a small surge of gratitude.

“He used to love doing experiments. God, drove me mad, it did. He’d get up to all sorts of things. Do you know he left a head in the refrigerator once?”

“A… head? Tell me you mean a head of lettuce.”

“Nope. Severed head. And that wasn’t even the half of it. Ears in the crisper—pig’s ears, not human, thank God. Fingers in the bathroom sink— those were human, unfortunately. D’you know one Christmas, he—” John broke off, shaking his head.

Mary looked at him, encouraging and patient. She took a sip of the beer that was now surely warm, and she waited for him to speak.

“It doesn’t matter. Anyway. He loved experiments. And then he… left. He went away, and I know it looked like he died, I _know_ it did because I was there and I saw it. I’m not stupid, no matter what the Met thinks, and I—I—”

“You don’t believe he’s dead,” Mary supplied helpfully.

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“So you’re, what…? Help me to understand, John. You say you’re hurting yourself but not really. You’ve clearly done a number on yourself, and I am afraid to ask what other injuries you have hiding under that shirt.” She help up her hand. “No, don’t start. I’m not stupid either. I saw you wince when you sat down. I see how stiffly you walk some days at work. Other people may not see it, but I do. I see you.”

“He’d have liked you.” John said.

“Tell me,” Mary said.

So John did. It probably wasn’t smart, would probably get him committed to the looney bin, but maybe he was just tired of being so alone. Alone in the flat, alone with his thoughts, alone with his experiments all the time. The experiments—he told her about those: the ones he had tried, the ones he had yet to try. She listened with rapt attention. She didn’t flinch away, didn’t “poor baby” him, didn’t tell him he was touched in the head or that he ought to stop.

That would have been easier, actually. Easier to ignore. She listened with a fearlessness, until John finally ran out of words.

“Done?” She asked him. John nodded. Mary blew out a breath. “Okay. Okay, so let me just make sure I have this straight. You believe Sherlock isn’t dead. He” she gestured with a hand. “Faked his own death somehow, and now you’re trying to prove it by putting yourself in increasingly dangerous situations, in the hopes that you’ll make him show his hand and reveal himself?”

Hearing it out loud, it did sound quite mad, John had to own. He didn’t say that. Instead he just nodded and said, “Yep. That’s about the size of it.”

“Okay. I’ll make you a deal. I’m not going to try to stop you, and I won’t tell anyone. And in return, can you just promise me…” She looked at John’s face. “Promise me that if you get into trouble, _real_ trouble, you’ll call me. Okay?”

“Okay.” The whole conversation had left him feeling terribly exposed, and he was ready for it to be over, so he tried for levity. “So… on a scale of 1-10 how was the date?”

And just like that, the tension burst like a bubble. Mary laughed, and it was a genuinely beautiful laugh, unselfconscious and full of mirth. John felt an unexpected rush of warmth for her.

“Bloody hell if this isn’t the weirdest date I’ve been on,” Mary chuckled.

John laughed too—at himself, at this date, at the whole bloody ridiculous lot of it. He held the door open for Mary as they made their way out.

“Forgive me if I don’t kiss you goodnight,” Mary said wryly.

John laughed, just a bit. “Aye, I imagine that would be a bit too much to ask for.”

She smiled at him and then turned to go. John watched as she walked down the London street, past the smokers who were leaning against the side of the pub, laughing and shoving one another playfully. Her leopard print coat looked incongruous against the grey and dingy night.

“Mary,” he called after her. She turned around, hands in her pocket. “Thank you,” he said, and he found that he really, truly meant it.

She gave him a jaunty, two finger salute pressed against her forehead, and he chuckled as she spun around, never breaking her stride. John started composing the next journal entry in his head already:

_Going on a proper date: fail_

But somehow, it didn’t feel like a complete failure.

  


*** * ***

It had been another month. Another month of failed experiments, and John’s hope was starting to flag. It had gotten to the point that he was even willing to entertain Anderson’s crackpot ideas, just for something to do and someone to talk to.

The man was utterly cracked, all bedraggled beard and frenzied eyes, but at least he made John feel less alone. To Anderson, he could say something like, “Sherlock isn’t dead” and be met with frantic nodding and a chorus of “Yes, yes, exactly! That’s what I have been _saying_ ” instead of worried glances and tight-lipped smiles. Everyone else’s faces said “Don’t upset John Watson; he’s already this close to losing the plot” and that was worse, so.

So while he never liked Anderson and certainly didn’t now, he’d taken to spending his lunch hour with him. Just occasionally. It took the edge off.

Mostly, Anderson would rattle off the newest theories he’d gleaned from his weird little fanclub, and John would listen and nod sagely. They would eat sandwiches on the park bench, and then when it was time to go, they got up and went back to their respective workplaces. There was no consolations, no messy feelings involved. John liked that.

“Sherlock had a secret relationship with Moriarty, and they planned the disappearance together.”

John tuned back in. “What? No! Mate, I would have noticed if Sherlock had a secret relationship with anyone, let alone Moriarty.”

“Would you? No offense, but Sherlock was cleverer than you.” Anderson’s voice took on a certain wistfulness. “He was cleverer than all of us.”

This conversation was beginning to irritate John, and badly. “Sherlock wasn’t like that. He didn’t _date_. ‘Sentiment is a defect found on the losing side.’”

Anderson looked him over, skeptical. “Didn’t stop him with you, did it?”

John was suitably nettled. “Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

Anderson held his hands up in a gesture of peace. “Nothing. Nothing, I’m sorry I said it. No secret relationship with Moriarty, yeah? It was just a silly one of Jenny’s theories. More hair than brains that one, you know?”

“Sure,” John said, crumpling up the empty deli wrapper in his hands. He stood with a groan. Every joint in his body seemed to be creaking. It had been a long night. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“See you tomorrow?” Anderson asked, obviously worried that he’d said something wrong and offended his new friend. Not friend, John amended in his head. Accomplice in madness.

“Yeah,” John said, and he just sounded tired.

He was surprised to see Mary waiting for him a distance away, but he didn’t show it.

“Isn’t that the president of that one nutty society? What do they call themselves?” She asked once he was finally in speaking range.

“The Empty Hearse,” John supplied, shaking his head.

“Right. Didn’t peg you as that type, I have to say. Although I suppose you do share a common interest.” She held out a paper cup. “Here, brought you a coffee.”

“I’m not. That type, that is. He’s— Anderson was a colleague, from before. We just talk. Well, mostly he talks, and I listen.”

Mary cocked her head. “Does it help?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It makes me feel less cracked, I suppose.”

They started walking back to the clinic together. The leaves were turning colors for autumn and starting to fall off the trees. They crunched beneath their boots, and John listened to the music of it while they walked in companionable silence. Mary didn’t push, and that surprised him too. He thought she would lecture him, tell him what he was doing was unhealthy.

“Why don’t you?” he asked, before he realized that he needed to clarify. Sometimes he forgot that everyone wasn’t as damnably clever as Sherlock Holmes, that other people couldn’t deduce his very thoughts from a look at his face and a bit of lint on his collar. “Why don’t you tell me to stop, tell me that what I’m doing is bad for me?”

Mary seemed to think, for a moment. That was heartening. She didn’t just blurt out what she thought he wanted to hear. She took a moment to really consider her words, to make sure they were true.

“Because you already know,” she said. “You’re a smart man, John. If I thought it might make any difference, I would tell you to stop right this instant, but we both know it wouldn’t matter.” A small smile quirked up at the corner of her mouth, and she smoothed one soft, cool hand over John’s cheek. “I know the look of the lovesick when I see it.”

John was taken aback. “Love? For Sherlock? Hardly.”

Mary wagged her finger at him. “You can lie to yourself, but you can’t fool me, mister.” He gaped at her, and she just raised an eyebrow, daring him to prove her wrong. “Now close your mouth and drink your coffee before it gets cold.”

* * *

John brushed off what Mary had said earlier. Sherlock was his best friend, his flatmate, the person who brought unreasonable danger and excitement into his life. The person who kept him from ever getting bored, certainly. But love? No, not that. John was straight. He didn’t think of Sherlock that way. And Sherlock certainly didn’t think of him that way, so there was no point dwelling on it. None at all.

He was just doing what anyone would do for their best friend.

_Are you, though? John, I’m not an expert on human nature, but I’m quite certain that friends don’t normally all but kill themselves in the interest of proving a point._ He could imagine what Sherlock would say so clearly, as if the other man was actually here with him. And the Sherlock in his head was just as infuriating as the real thing.

John grabbed his computer and put on a violin concerto. Bach, tonight. He put on the kettle and looked dimly into the fridge. There wasn’t much to see. He hadn’t been grocery shopping lately. The truth was, since he’d started his experiments, he’d let a lot of things slide.

John sighed. He should eat something. He wouldn’t be much good to anyone, least of all Sherlock, if he expired of hunger. He closed the fridge again. He would eat something, but maybe not tonight. The thought of leaving the flat again to pick up takeout or do the shopping was all just a bit much. Tomorrow. He’d do it tomorrow.

The kettle whistled, and John fixed his tea. He took it and drifted out of the kitchen to stare out the window. The street was quiet below. He closed his eyes and felt the steam of the cup warm against his lip. The violin reached a crescendo, and with his eyes closed, he could almost pretend Sherlock was there.

Time passed. He wasn’t sure how long. Long enough that his tea had gone cold, and his bones were starting to feel stiff and tired. He set his teacup down on the table. As an afterthought, he grabbed his journal and added a new entry:

_Starvation: Inconclusive. Further research needed._

Then he tossed down the pen and padded up the stairs to his bedroom. He left the lights on and the music playing. The dark, low croon of the violin chased him up the stairs, wrapping its way around his heart.

* * *

John had been tired all day. Exhausted, even, but now that he was finally in bed he couldn’t sleep. _Lovesick_ , Mary had said. Was that true? Couldn’t be.

John dismissed the thought.

He lay awake in bed, willing sleep to come. He closed his eyes, listened to the steady _drip drip drip_ of the leaky tap in the bathroom. He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. He listened to the occasional car that passed by, flooding his room with a sudden wash of light.

He flipped himself onto his back with more force than strictly necessary. He was restless. His skin was thrumming with too much energy, and he punched his pillow. The darkness in the room felt oppressive, as though it were a heavy, living thing trying to smother him.

He had to do something. Anything. He considered going out again.

Instead, John let his hand hand drift down to the seam of his pants with a sigh. Well. Maybe it would help him sleep. He palmed himself through the thin fabric for a moment, breathing through his mouth and just enjoying the sensation. He hadn’t done this in a while.

His prick grew hard, and John shoved the waistband of his pants down low on his hips so he could get his hand around it. He thought of nothing as he gripped himself and gave two rough strokes over his cock.

_Lovesick_ , she had said.

John imagined Mary, Mary with her golden hair and her soft pink lips. She really was a beautiful woman. He pumped his hand over his shaft, twisting around the head of his cock on the upstroke in a way that made him curl his toes, and the mental image slipped away like so much water, leaving something jagged and harsh in its place. The soft bow of Mary’s mouth was replaced by other lips and a riot of black inky curls.

John thought of Sherlock, the deathly gorgeous arc his body had made in its swan dive, the sound of him saying _John_ that last time—the last time ever.

John choked back a sob as he came.

* * *

When John went downstairs, feeling haunted after a night of dreams that smelled of blood, he very pointedly did not think about last night.

Hunger had reasserted itself with a vengeance, and John was glad for the distraction. The fridge was largely bare, he had seen that last night, but he thought there must still be a packet of biscuits in the cupboard somewhere, one he had bought weeks ago and promptly forgotten. He was weighing the benefits of eating a biscuit versus continuing his own private little hunger strike when he walked down the stairs.

The last thing John expected to see this morning was Mycroft Holmes. The man himself was standing in the living room, looking at everything as though it vaguely disgusted him. He peered at the layer of dust gathering atop the mantle with distaste.

“Doctor Watson,” was all he said by way of greeting, looking more smug and well-dressed than anyone ought at 7 o’clock.

“Why are you in my house?” It was too early to try for polite, even if John had been inclined, which he most certainly was not. He had never been fond of the older Holmes brother, never liked the casually callous way he treated Sherlock.

“He won’t thank you for following him into an early grave, you know.”

John’s hands stilled on the tea kettle, and he held his breath. “So he’s alive. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Mycroft pursed his lips. “I am telling you that dead men thank no one. Do be smart about this, Doctor Watson. I know you’re not exactly the brain trust, but I think you can do better than this.”

He fixed John with a pointed look and jabbed the umbrella in his direction. “Don’t make me come down here again. The dust of this horrid place is terrible for my allergies.”

John Watson had just about had enough. The outburst rather snuck its way out of him. “Why is everyone so keen on telling me what to do?”

“Even if my brother were alive—and mind you, I am not saying that he is—what good do you suppose it would do him, to worry that his friend had a death wish and the will to carry it out?”

John’s hands were curling into fists at his side, and his next words came out as a yell. “Maybe it’s not about him, for once! Maybe it’s about me and what I need.”

Mycroft gave him a look that made him feel utterly small. “Don’t be a child, John. It doesn’t suit you.” He stopped, hand on the doorknob. “And for God’s sake, eat something.”

John stood still, staring mutinously at the door after it closed behind Mycroft. Then he crossed to the cabinet, found the pack of chocolate biscuits lurking at the back of the cupboard, and very deliberately threw them in the trash. He filled a glass with lukewarm water from the tap and drained it, then poured himself another. The rumbling in his belly subsided, and he felt almost as though he had won something.

* * *

Hunger had become an interesting thing, for John. It was a fascinating thing to observe. John had thought he knew hunger in the army, subsisting on barely-edible military rations for months at a time, but it turned out that hunger was yet another thing he didn’t understand at all.

For instance, his stomach didn’t growl anymore. Instead of the rumbling, aching feeling he was used to, John’s hunger had turned into a sharp pain. It was an empty, hollow knot. A black hole at the core of him.

He drank more water, coffee, tea to try to drown the sensation, but hunger apparently had ways of making itself very known. It became just one more thing to master, pushing the pain away as he went about his business, steadying his hands so his patients wouldn’t see them shake.

On any other man, John would have called this behavior reckless. He understood what Sherlock meant now, he thought. He understood the reason the detective would never eat while on a case. The hunger sharpened you. It cleared your vision, made you hard, until everything was just so bright and vivid and crystalline. It was brilliant, really. It made the most perfect sense.

“Lunch?” Mary asked, coming round his office at 12 on the nose.

“Can’t, meeting Anderson today.” The lie rolled off his tongue. He was getting good at lying.

“No, you don’t. You cancelled on him like you’ve done for the past week.” Mary folded her arms across her chest. “What experiment number is this?”

“What?” John asked.

“The—” she made a vague gesture. “Hunger strike. Number?”

“Twenty-eight.” The number rolled off his tongue.

“Good God, Watson. How many experiments do you think you can survive?”

“Oh, come off it. I thought you said you wouldn’t try to convince me to stop.”

“I’m not. Come on, you’re a doctor. How many, do you figure?”

“As many as it takes.”

“Mm,” she hummed. “Come on, lunch.”

John plopped back into his seat. “As you so eloquently put it, this is a hunger strike. Can’t do lunch.”

“Just a cup of soup.” She flashed him a grin, and it was a contagious one. An I-dare-you grin. “Come on, I know a sandwich place down the road. I won’t tell if you don’t.”

John relented. Mary was incredibly persuasive when she wanted to be, as he was coming to learn, and he couldn’t fault her logic. This experiment would be over awfully fast if he were to actually expire of starvation. One cup of soup wouldn’t make much of a difference, in the grand scheme of things.

  


His eyes closed with pleasure as the first bite of soup hit his tongue. It was tangy and salty with just a hint of cream, and it was so good. His stomach, which seemed to have long given up signalling hunger, woke up with a vengeance. The feel of the hot soup sliding down his throat was divine, and John fancied he could actually feel the food as it hit his stomach.

Belatedly, he realized Mary had been talking while he’d been utterly fixated on his food.

“Sorry, what?” he asked.

She was leaning her chin on the flat of her palm. “I asked, how does it work, anyway? Your experiments. How’s Sherlock supposed to see you in your misery and swoop down on a white horse?”

He glared at her over the tall counter they were seated at. “Don’t be an arse. You make me sound like a damsel in some fairytale.”

Mary shrugged. “Fine, fine. Not a white horse. Satisfy my curiosity, though. How does he _know_? I mean I’ve read the papers, he’s a brilliant detective, but surely even the great Sherlock Holmes isn’t omniscient. You know that, right?”

The papers. Thank Christ for small miracles, but at least Sherlock’s name had been cleared. John had harbored a small hope that Sherlock would return in a flurry of swirling coats and manic energy once that happened, but it hadn’t been meant to be. It had been a foolish hope, anyway. Beyond foolish, really.

“Of course I know that. He has his ways,” John said, feeling nettled. He was aware, as he spoke, that he was sounding uncomfortably like Anderson. “He has his homeless network, plus whatever other tricks he’s got lurking up those poncy sleeves of his.”

“John… you realize that he might not even be in London, right? What if he’s not actually around to see you doing your impression of the skeleton man?”

“His brother taps into the CCTV cameras to spy on us—no, don’t ask. I’ve not lost the plot, it’s literally true. He paid me a visit this morning, in fact. If that’s not proof that Sherlock’s still alive, then I don’t know what is.”

“Maybe his brother was just concerned.”

John snorted. “You’ve obviously never met Mycroft.”

He looked into his empty soup cup wistfully, and Mary pushed her crackers across the table. John ate them without another word.

* * *

Loathe as he was to tell her so, John had to admit that Mary had a point. He didn’t like to think on it, but what if Sherlock wasn’t in London? What if he wasn’t even in England anymore?

This was an element he hadn’t considered, an extra variable. What if his experiments had been failing, but not due to flawed methods as he had suspected? What if they had been failing for lack of publicity?

Could Sherlock really _not know_? That seemed unlikely.

John could publish his list, the journal entries. He still had the blog, unused as it had been since Sherlock’s disappearance. The only downside was the flood of concern he was sure would come. He didn’t want to worry Harry. He didn’t want to worry his therapist either, but that was mostly due to a fear of being sectioned. They didn’t section people for that sort of thing, did they?

Might do. After all, John was still a doctor, and he was realistic enough to admit that if a patient was presenting with his symptoms, he would consider the man a danger to himself.

The blog was out, then. John would just have to think of another way to get Sherlock’s attention.

  


As it turned out, he didn’t have to think very hard. The plan found him. It found him in the form of one Bill Wiggins, a bloke John had seen around Sherlock before. Bill was a tall, gangly man caught halfway between adolescence and adulthood. He pretended at being simple, but he was far more clever than he let on.

He was also Sherlock’s old dealer.

That knowledge was hard-won. John had been asking around after it for weeks in back alleys and restaurants that were really fronts for more illicit businesses. If he’d thought on it, he might have been alarmed at how comfortable he was in such places these days. It might have bothered him that people recognized his face and didn’t hassle him, just one more wrecked soul looking for something in the lost and lowly places.

When he found out who Wiggins was, John felt a pang of doubt. He _had_ seen Wiggins around; did that mean Sherlock had been using before? Back when things were still normal (or whatever normal was for them), before everything had gone to shit? John pushed the thought away. Surely not.

Wiggins didn’t come to John as a dealer. He came to give him information on a man named Sidney, an arms dealer that John had been trying to track down. It had been so long that John had only asked, “What?” irritated and confused when Wiggins told him that Sidney was running a gun trade out of the local pawn shop.

Oh. Right. The idea to confront an arms dealer had come before number thirteen (attempt to swim in the Thames in winter) and after number twelve (manage to get drugged in a pub).

John thanked Wiggins and paid him, and then blessed inspiration struck, and he asked the man, “So. What’ve you got?”

Wiggins adamantly _did not_ want to sell John drugs, but in the end John persuaded him. Mostly by threatening to go to someone else and purposefully find the dirtiest smack cut with Drano and rat poison.

In the end, John bought heroin.

“Don’t,” Wiggins said.

John shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets along with the small, unassuming bag of white powder. He smiled at all the CCTV cameras on the way home.

  


John was a doctor.

He already had the needle and syringe, had them since before he’d been able to admit _this_ particular plan to himself. He had alcohol swabs, rubber tubing, and iodine. He sterilized everything first.

He was a doctor, and he knew he should be doing this at home. Instead, he picked the meanest street and sat down with a huff.

John was a doctor, and he knew that 50 milligrams of heroin was the highest dose an opium-naive man of his weight could safely take, and even that was pushing it. He loaded up the syringe with 75 milligrams, took a deep breath, and pushed the plunger home.

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt, thank you Kurt Vonnegut, and John thought that maybe Sherlock had been right about this too.

* * *

When John came to, Sherlock was the first thing he saw. Sherlock, looking angrier than John had ever seen him. The man looked positively livid, eyes dark with thunderous rage and lips pursed into a thin line, going white at the edges.

It was the most beautiful thing John had ever seen.

“Decided not to die after all, have you?” The familiar plummy voice was cold and clipped, each word a dart designed to pierce tender flesh, and it was music to his ears.

John tried to speak, but his throat protested at the unwelcome action. His voice emerged as a croak that died in a coughing fit. His mouth felt stuffed with cotton, and his head was throbbing.

“Here,” Sherlock relented, voice softening infinitesimally as he handed John a cup of tea. It was tepid and oversteeped. _He’s been sitting there a while now_ , John’s brain helpfully supplied. The thought gave him a little thrill.

_It worked_.

The rational part of John’s brain realized it was a bit sick to be this thrilled about a successful overdose. The rest of his brain was lost in a cacophony of _thirsty_ and _pain_ and _Sherlock_ , and John gulped the tea down gratefully. He still felt dry beyond all reckoning, but it helped. He sat up in bed and tried to get a sense of where _here_ was.

“You’re at Baker Street,” Sherlock says, grim. “You were scraped off the floor of an alley. _Jesus_ , John.”

“Mycroft?” John winced.

“Lestrade.”

John was feeling more alert now, enough that the room had stopped spinning. He looked at Sherlock sitting in a chair next to the bed and took in his pale face, the wild hair looking longer than he remembered. Sherlock was angry, and he knew this was a serious thing. He had almost died. And yet, he couldn’t help the smile that usurped his face. The smile kept widening, and before he knew it, he was grinning ear to ear. He was sure he must look truly cracked.

Sherlock rubbed his temples delicately, as though it was _his_ head that was hurting.

“And now you’re smiling. Pray tell me, John, what exactly is so _amusing_ about you overdosing in some back alley hellhole and scaring me half to death? I thought you had died, John.” He sounded angry and lost and helpless, and John ached to have put that sound in Sherlock’s voice. Which was why John really, really didn’t intend to say what came out of his mouth next:

“So now you know how it feels.”

That one was meant to stay safely in his head, along with how he really felt about the Beatles and how much he truly, deeply disliked Harry when she was on a bender.

Sherlock flinched as though he’d been slapped, and when he spoke, he sounded dangerous. He sounded every bit the sociopath he often claimed to be. His words were too careful, and it reminded John of something he couldn’t quite place.

“That’s what this is about, then? _Revenge_ ? Trying to show me the error of my ways, John? _No, don’t speak_. I didn’t take you for an idiot, but maybe you’re just as petty and low as the rest of them. Is that it?”

Sherlock threw a notebook down on the bed between them, like a gauntlet. It was John’s journal, his record of the experiments. He hadn’t actually meant for Sherlock to see that.

“Oh.”

Sherlock snorted. “Yes, _oh_.”

Ah. John could place it now, what Sherlock reminded him of. His neighbors had a dog when he was young. It was a mean brute of a thing, bigger than any canine ought to be, with massive jaws built to crush bone. He had climbed over the fence into the neighbor’s backyard once, on a dare. The dog had just looked at him, as if sizing him up. It had gone so still for just a moment, right before it lunged and clamped those rending teeth around his thigh.

He never forgot the look on that dog’s face, the look of something very toothy and very dangerous eyeing its prey. _That_ was the look Sherlock was wearing on his face now, and John chose his next words with care.

“It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Then explain it to me, and quickly. My patience is wearing thin, and I think you’ll remember I am not a patient man.”

John took a deep breath.

“I thought that if I put myself in danger—Look, it wasn’t some self-destructive instinct. I thought that if I put myself in enough danger, you would come back for me.” It sounded worse, saying it out loud, and John realized he’d never actually done so before. He winced, hearing the words out of his own mouth. He sounded so needy, so small and _weak_. Damsel in distress, indeed.

Realization dawned on Sherlock’s face, and he wore a queer expression, one John couldn’t quite place. “You trusted me to save you.” Sherlock’s brows knitted together, and John could see his impossible brain making lightning-fast connections. “Did it occur to you that I might have actually been dead?”

“No.” John said, forcing a grin, the kind they might have shared _before_. “You’re Sherlock Holmes. Probably you’ll outlive me, the Queen, and God himself.”

Sherlock studied his face, and for once it made John feel uncomfortable, laid bare and too exposed. He’d gone too long without being studied like that, and he wasn’t immune to it anymore. So instead, John busied himself, shifting his legs over to the side of the bed so he could push himself up. Sherlock absently scooted his own chair away, never breaking his scrutiny of John. It was amazing how much they still fit together like this—the sheer physicality of it, the way their bodies could anticipate one another’s movements without missing a beat. It was like a dance. It was poetry.

Standing up was harder than he thought, and the world wobbled a bit as he got his sea legs. John was dressed in last night’s clothes and he smelled like a sewer. His clothes were caked in muck and dried sweat and things he didn’t even want to name. He walked to his wardrobe to get a fresh change of clothes, turning his back to Sherlock so he wouldn’t have to see the exact moment the realization hit him.

John could hide from everyone else, but he could never hide from Sherlock.

“You didn’t know I was alive.”

John’s eyes slid shut. His hands clenched into fists at his side.

He felt rather than heard Sherlock coming to stand behind him. He didn’t move, as though by staying perfectly still, perhaps he could go entirely invisible and never have this conversation at all.

There were hands on his arms, then. The touch was gentler than John had thought Sherlock had it in him to be, but firm, and they spun him around. John kept his eyes shut, still, not willing to open his eyes and see the disappointment he knew would be reflected there. He really was acting like the child Mycroft had accused him of being.

If he kept his eyes shut, he wouldn’t have to see the disgust in Sherlock’s eyes when he realized that John the steady doctor, John the war hero, was a lie; and that he was actually just this pathetic _thing_. A sad, sorry man in love with his flatmate: the mad, brilliant self-proclaimed sociopath. And what hurt, really, wasn’t that Sherlock would never love him. John was pretty sure Sherlock could never love anyone. He was okay with being a useful tool for Sherlock, kept around to fill a purpose, just as long as he was a favorite tool. And he thought he had been.

He thought that he had been indispensable to Sherlock, and therein lay his grave mistake, because no one was indispensable to the great Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock had left him like nothing, and it had turned out that John had been wrong all along. He was never the favorite tool, not even a useful one, probably. He was a toy: well-liked, but fine to cast aside once the game had grown boring. That realization is what stung most of all.

“John, look at me.” He didn’t sound angry anymore. John wouldn’t have opened his eyes for anything but this: Sherlock sounded… sad. Hurt. Utterly human.

And so he opened his eyes, and found Sherlock peering right into his face, so close he could taste his breath.

“I knew you were alive,” John whispered.

“No,” Sherlock said, gentle. “You didn’t. You can’t lie to me, I can see it in your face.” He traced the tip of his ring finger down the side of John’s face, and John shuddered. It wasn’t a caress. It was more like being studied, and something about that made John feel hot and desperate. It was too much. Too close and not enough, and Sherlock kept talking. “God, John, you thought I might be dead. That wasn’t recklessness or science. That was _suicide_.”

John felt a flush of shame. He couldn’t hide, not like this. Not with Sherlock so close. He tried for honesty. It wasn’t like he had much more to lose.

“Not much point living without you, is there?”

Sherlock flinched. “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that.”

John shrugged. “I thought you told me not to lie to you.”

Sherlock retreated and took to pacing around the room. “Is this supposed to be some kind of show of loyalty, John? Because I can assure you I don’t need _this_ , whatever this is. I— Look, you can’t. Okay? Promise me. _Promise me_ , you will never do something like that again.”

“Promise you won’t leave me behind again, and we have a deal.”

“John, I can’t—”

The words left him in a rush, before John had consciously decided to speak them. He had almost killed himself for this man, no sense in stopping and listening to reason now. “Look, I know I’m not important, like that, to you. And I know this is all a bit much and a bit cracked, I get that. God, trust me, Sherlock, I get that. But I’m steady and a good shot, and I can keep Lestrade and Donovan off your back, you know I can. Just, let me have this. I’ll move out if you like, just don’t say you’re done with me. We can forget this ever happened.”

Whatever response John was expecting, it was not this. Sherlock lunged at John, crowded him up against the wall, and now his hands were framing either side of the doctor’s face. That glittering, dangerous predatory look was back in his eye, and John squirmed. He felt like a bug pinned against velvet. “You think you’re not _important_ to me?”

“You left.” It sounded thin and forlorn, even to his ears.

“To _save you_ , you idiot. There were snipers. They were going to kill you, and Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. I spent the last nine months tracking down the remains of Moriarty’s organization. A task I’ve still not finished, mind you. I wasn’t planning on coming back so soon.” He quirked his eyebrow. “It seems you had other plans.”

John stared, dumbfounded. Then he crushed his lips to Sherlock’s, and it wasn’t an elegant kiss. It was rough and harsh, a mash of teeth and tongue. Sherlock made a startled noise into John’s mouth. The kiss went on for blessed, blissful seconds before Sherlock pulled back.

He studied John, searching for something in his eyes as he licked a smear of blood from his lips. The sight of that small pink tongue darting out, kittenish, made John’s mouth go dry. Sherlock seemed to find whatever it was he was looking for. He threaded one hand through the hair at the nape of John’s neck and fitted their mouths together again.

The kiss was slow this time, and when John tried to goad Sherlock into going faster, Sherlock pinned his hands against the wall. Sherlock took his time, sliding his tongue past John’s in a sensual dance. The kiss was deliberate, methodical, as if Sherlock was cataloging every taste and shudder of John’s mouth. Sherlock nipped at his lips—first the bottom, then the top—and gave a pleased hum when John groaned at the sensation.

They kissed until they had to come up for air, panting. John looked at Sherlock as though he was seeing him for the first time. “You—” he squeaked out.

_I did it to save you_. It wasn’t a trick, or a cruel lark. John’s heart swelled. He wanted to lose himself in that kiss, to forget the last year and even his own name, but something still bothered him. “Why didn’t you take me with you? I’d have risked my life alongside you, just as I always have done.”

“It was too dangerous,” Sherlock said. “This wasn’t hunting down petty criminals. This was much, much worse.” Sherlock looked far away for a moment, and John touched his wrist to bring him back down to earth.

“I’ve survived a bloody war, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s lips crooked up in a half smile. “I may have made a mistake.”

John snorted. “Now that’s a miracle.”

“How was I to know you’d be more of a danger to yourself than all of Moriarty’s men combined?”

“I thought you knew everything,” John teased.  


“Don’t be tiresome,” Sherlock said, but there was no bite to it. He reached for John and kissed him again.

John didn’t think he would ever get enough of that, even if he lived until the heat death of the universe. It was a desperate and dark thought, and he clung to Sherlock like a man drowning. He shoved Sherlock’s coat off his shoulders and yanked his shirt out of his trousers so he could curl his hands against the warm skin of Sherlock’s back.

They kissed their way to the bed, shedding clothes as they went. John had nearly died, and Sherlock was newly back from the dead. It was messy and uncoordinated and so, so perfect.

Sherlock was down to his trousers, and John’s shirt was askew, hanging on by a few buttons when the back of John’s knees collided with the bed. Sherlock fell on him, pinning him under his weight before ravaging his neck with biting kisses. John groaned loud and low. His head fell back as he touched every inch of Sherlock he could reach.

“Let me make it up to you,” Sherlock murmured into his skin, and God, the silkiness of that voice was going to kill him. He nuzzled his nose behind John’s ear and licked the soft flesh there. “What do you want?”

“ _Everything_ ,” John breathed.

It didn’t make sense. It was a nothing answer, but Sherlock understood. His eyes were grave and serious as he looked down at John’s flushed face. “Everything,” he agreed.

His hands turned soft, and he undid the remaining buttons on John’s shirt gently, reverently. He slid it off John’s shoulders and kissed one collarbone then the other. He worked his way down John’s chest, planting feathery kisses to every inch of skin he found. When John started to tremble, he smoothed his hand over his flank, like gentling a skittish horse.

Each kiss felt like _I’m sorry_ , and John kissed back like _I missed you_.

They touched and kissed and passed the night in a flurry of _I’m sorry I’m sorry_ and _I missed you missed you missed you._

  


* * *

They lay holding each other until the sun disappeared under the horizon in a haze of blood red. John was carding his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, wondering at the simple joy of being allowed this. When he woke up this morning, Sherlock had been dead, and now he was here in John’s bed, back at Baker Street where he belonged.

_With me. He belongs with me._

Sherlock’s limbs lay in a careless jumble, mixed with John’s own. Their legs were tangled together, and Sherlock’s arms were sprawled over the pillow. John didn’t think he’d ever seen the detective like this, so unguarded and open. It seemed to take years off him. He looked young like this, his face smoothed of all the tension it habitually carried.

John had been tired, so tired—nothing _but_ tired for months—but now he found that he couldn’t sleep. He didn’t want to, for fear he would open his eyes and this would all be a dream. He stayed awake and kept watch, studying the pale curve of Sherlock’s cheek in profile.

Sherlock had been still for so long that John assumed he must be asleep, and he pressed a kiss on the top of his friend’s hair. He inhaled the scent of it, and it smelled like smoke and sweat and _Sherlock_. He was thinner than John remembered. The milky expanse of his skin looked almost translucent in the growing dark. It stretched over his ribs in a way that made John’s throat feel tight.

He was so sure that Sherlock was asleep that the hand ghosting along his jaw startled him out of his thoughts. The detective’s eyes remained closed when he spoke. “You’ve gotten thin too.”

John pressed his eyes shut tight, and that was just too much, wasn’t it? It was the most _Sherlock_ thing he had heard in the better part of a year.

“Guess we’ll have to fatten each other up, won’t we?”

“Mm,” Sherlock agreed.

There were still things wrong. There were things they had to talk about. John was still hurt, still angry. Sherlock was still worried, and then there was Moriarty.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Sherlock groused. “It’s making my head hurt.”

John smiled into his shoulder, pressed himself against the warm bulk of Sherlock’s side, and finally, finally let go into the blissful hold of sleep.

Everything else would keep until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished watching Sherlock recently, and I utterly fell in love with the show and characters. This is my first fic in the Sherlock fandom, so let me know what you think! I had a lot of fun dreaming it up, and I have ideas for more fics in the future... probably lighter on the angst next time. I think I need to go cuddle something after writing this much sad!John.
> 
> Title is taken from lyrics to "Pure Feeling" by Florence + the Machine, which incidentally was my soundtrack while writing this fic. Go listen to it! It's a great song.


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